A three-borough weekend

After Boston, our next stop was New York City to visit my brother, who had just recently moved to Brooklyn. After taking forever to get into the city (traffic around New York can be such a nightmare!) we were incredibly happy to reach my brother’s surprisingly roomy Park Slope apartment and enjoy a Brooklyn beer. We went to a Peruvian restaurant for dinner (sorry, no pictures, but we weren’t that impressed by the place) and then visited some of my brother’s favorite neighborhood watering holes. It was nice to get to know his neighborhood– Park Slope is lovely and relaxed. Also, I have to say that instead of picking on me, my big brother was actually on his best behavior, so he was actually a pleasure to be around.

The next morning my brother humored our idea to go check out Flushing, Queens. After breakfast at a diner (I wish we had diners in Estonia!) and quite a long subway ride. we were in Flushing.

Flushing is pretty cool– it’s almost like finding yourself in another country. Most of the signs on storefronts aren’t in English and the shops are filled with fascinating and mysterious items. According to my brother, the area seems bigger and much less commercial than the Manhattan Chinatown (but  Wikipedia says the one in Manhattan is currently still bigger). I loved walking through shops filled with dozens of varieties of dried mushrooms, barrels full of sesame seeds, and things like this:

When it was time for a snack, we stuck with things that were a bit more familiar to us. I bought a package of dried seaweed snack (tasted like salty nori, the stuff you wrap around sushi!) and convinced J he needed steamed pork buns from a little stand on the sidewalk.

They were so cheap– $1.25 for four hefty buns! Gotta love street food. I also got myself a bun filled with red bean paste.

This picture is too much me, not enough red bean bun.

When we’d had our fill of Flushing we headed to Manhattan. We walked through a street fair and I bought some sunglasses since the cloudy day had turned quite sunny.

That night we ate dinner at Casaville, a tapas-style Moroccan restaurant that came highly recommended by my brother and another friend who joined us. I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking:

The broth from the mussels was so delicious we didn’t stop dipping our bread in it until the bowl was wiped clean

Tuna tartare

Fried brie with toast, honey, and fried grapes (sweet, tart and crunchy!)

Avocado hummus on the left (that was my request and I think I ate most of it!) and chorizo bruschetta on the right

Really interesting little phyllo dough pockets stuffed with chicken and topped with powdered sugar

Most of the time I just get to read about how New York is the best food city in the world, but that night I got to experience it myself. It was a truly satisfying meal and thinking about it a few months later still makes me happy.

Since I still have a bunch of New York pictures to share, I’ll be posting a Part II tomorrow!

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Mussels in Brussels and more

Of course, Brussels is the place for mussels. Unfortunately, Brussels was not a very good place for MY muscles, since I did much more sight-seeing and eating than I did jogging, but what can you do. You only live once.

I had the famed moules frites twice while in Brussels. The first time was OK, but the broth wasn’t terribly flavorful. J sampled mine, and decided it was something he’d like to try again (I’m not sure he felt the same way about the raw oysters he had as an appetizer). The second time was soon before leaving Brussels. That evening we allowed ourselves to be enchanted by the attractive but sometimes aggressive restaurant streets by the Grand Place, where white-linened tables crowd the sidewalk and fast-talking try to entice you to sit. The moules that night were better– they just felt fresher and better than the previous ones, and the white wine sauce, though a bit salty, enhanced the flavor. The fries were good, but y’know what? I don’t think I had any fries in Belgium that truly blew me away. Of course they were satisfying, but I think I prefer my potatoes with the skin on– I daresay the boardwalk fries I will eat later this summer in the States will top Belgian frites in my book.

However, I don’t think I will find the equal of a Belgian waffle anywhere else in this world. After reading on Orangette about gaufre de Liege, I knew what to look for– the smaller, rounder waffles, and make sure that it just came off the iron. Warm, yeasty, kind of dense, every inch of the brown surface offering some caramelized flavor. I know this extreme close-up of a waffle is kind of frightening, but you can see the texture, as well as the pearl sugar that adds extra-sweet spots to the waffle.

Then there were the everyday food experiences. Like finding out early on that Belgium has a much smaller selection of yogurt and other dairy products than Estonia. I failed to find an inexpensive plain nonfat yogurt at the store, but I found something in a yogurt-like container that said “Fromage blanc, 0%.” Maybe that’s what they call plain yogurt here? (Even though I knew very well that “fromage blanc” means “white cheese”). It seemed to be more or less what I was looking for. At home, I discovered the taste was more complex than just the regular sourness of yogurt– it reminded me a little of goat cheese, though as far as I could tell, it wasn’t made from goat’s milk. (I finally checked Wikipedia to figure out what I was actually eating).

On nice days, I could eat lunch outside at the place I was working. There was a lovely backyard. Doesn’t it look pleasant? Though the food is nothing remarkable, this may be one of my favorite memories from Brussels.

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